 One of the beautiful things about life is that it's just filled with choices. We get to choose how we want to consume content, for example. We can consume a bunch of positive, uplifting content, or we can consume negative content, and it affects our mind in different ways. So today, not only are we gonna be talking about James Charles giving away a bunch of money, but we're also gonna be talking about the psychology of cognitive distortions as well as selective attention theory. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And if you're new to my channel, what I try to do, take different topics going on in the YouTube community, try to see what lessons we can pull from them to improve our own mental and emotional well-being. So if you're into that stuff, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And something that I'm really fascinated with is human behavior, social psychology, all this stuff. And something I did was I recently wrote a book called Canceled Inside YouTube Cancel Culture, where I talk about crowd psychology, my own experience with cancel culture, as well as different stories, such as what happened with James Charles and taught to Westbrook earlier this year and some other stories from the YouTube community. So if you wanna check that book out, it's an e-book and audio book, down in the description, down in the pinned comment below. All right, so yes, we are going to be talking about James Charles and drama channels, but we're also gonna be talking about psychology. So before I jump into this, let me give you a quick psychology lesson, all right? I am not a psychologist myself, but I'm a big nerd when it comes to psychology and I love reading books about how the brain works, absolutely fascinating. So the first thing we'll talk about is cognitive distortions. I've been talking about this a lot lately. So cognitive distortions is our mind telling us lies, all right? This is something that if you're in therapy, your therapist typically has you work on your cognitive distortions, all right? Like there are many factors to depression and anxiety that are biological, but a lot of it, like studies have shown that a lot of this is based on just our thinking patterns. That's why cognitive behavioral therapy is an evidence-based therapy that helps rewire our brain. Now you know why my channel is called a Rewired Soul, huh? So I wanna focus on one specific cognitive distortion, all right? There's a bunch of them, but I wanna focus on the specific one of mind reading. How many times do we get upset because we assume somebody else's motives or intentions, right? We believe that we can read that person's mind, like they're not doing this for this reason, they're actually doing it for this reason. Just an example, when I was working at the Addiction Treatment Center, we would have clients who when they would get upset, they'd be like, you're not here to actually help us, you're just here for the money, right? No possible way for them to know it, especially because people like me weren't making all that much money there, right? But think about what mind reading, cognitive distortions you might have where you think maybe your significant other did this just to get under your skin or maybe a co-worker did this because of that, right? And ask yourself, what evidence do you have to base that on aside from you assuming that you can read minds? Next thing we're gonna talk about is the psychology of selective attention, okay? So long time ago, they did this experiment where they took two groups of people, they played them a videotape where there was a team in white jerseys, a team in black jerseys passing a basketball, all right? And they said, okay, group one, you count how many times the team in the black jerseys passes the basketball. Group two, you count how many times the team in the white jerseys passes the basketball, right? They do it, they ask them how many times the basketball was passed and oh my God, these people could count. But then the psychologist running the experiment said, did you notice anything weird in that video? And they're like, no. And they're like, really? You didn't notice anything weird? You didn't notice a guy in a gorilla costume walk across the screen and pound his chest and they're like, what? You crazy, right? So what they did was they rewound the tape, right? Didn't take it out or anything, no magic tricks. They rewound the tape and there it was, a gorilla, a guy in a gorilla costume walk past, pounded his chest, right? Basically, this is how they came up with selective attention theory where they realized that our mind is trained to pay attention to whatever we tell it to pay attention to, right? So the people in that experiment, they were told to pay attention to the people passing the basketball. So they got tunnel vision on it. Well, since then, they've done a bunch of other experiments and this is kind of what's going to separate optimists from pessimists. If you're constantly focusing on the negative, you're going to have a negative train of thought. If you're focusing on the positive, you're more likely to be optimistic, all right? So what the hell does this have to do with James Charles? So I'm on Twitter yesterday and I see this guy James Charles tweet something out. I'll put it up on the screen, but something like, hey, who needs help with their bills? And I'm like, man, I do, but a bunch of people did. So a bunch of people replied and said I need help with my bills and he started replying people, check your DMs, check your DMs and everything like that. He started retweeting people who he DMs and there was even this amazing video that someone sent him. Hi, hi James Charles. This is Lisa Marks. I am Aiden Marks' mom. I wanted just to do a shout out and thank you from the bottom of my heart for paying my bills. I am so thrilled and so blessed and so lucky that my son Aiden tweeted that and with your generosity, I am able to pay my bills and able to put more into my classroom. Thank you for being such a great role model to my son. So isn't that awesome? Isn't that awesome like this mother who's also a school teacher? Like think about how her day or even her month was made because James Charles paid their bills, right? She can invest into the classroom and help those kids. Like that's pretty awesome. James has a ton of money, so that's great. He just gave it to this person as well as many other people. So I got the idea for this video originally because I was thinking about drama channels and like let's go back to mind reading, the cognitive distortion of mind reading, right? Like I'm gonna be talking about drama channels, but I don't mean to throw any shade at these drama channels, but some of you might assume my motives and intentions, right? And this is what some channels are doing when it comes to James Charles as well. But I was wondering, are drama channels gonna cover the positive? Are they gonna cover that James Charles is giving away a bunch of money? So when you look at other channels who are talking about drama subjects and everything like that, dozens and dozens and dozens of videos on James Charles, but what is it? It's all the negative. All the negative things. It's not about the good thing that he just did. So I'm like, how many of them are actually gonna talk about it? So if you look at channels like, you know, The Viewer's Voice and things like that who have a bunch of James Charles videos, will they make a video about this? My guess is no. So I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing for drama channels. Like it's in the name of their channel, drama channels, they're there to cover drama. They're not covering the positive. What I want you to pay attention to is yourself. All right? So based on selective attention theory, based on our brains focusing on what we train it to focus on, what do you think happens when you sit there watching drama channels all day long? Do you think that you're more likely to go out in the real world and pay attention to the positive or to the negative when these channels are dedicated to focusing on the negative? Think about that real quick. All right? So I was actually wrong. I was wrong because right before I sat down to record this video, I was like, has anybody made a video about this? Has anybody talked about this yet? You know? And I looked and Rich Lux actually made a video about it. All right? I'm like, ah, cool, let's see. Is he saying, hey, good job, James. Like, did this amazing thing? But I checked it out. And first he showed this tweet right here. All right? This tweet saying, don't believe for one second that James Charles is doing this out of the kindness of his heart. He's doing this because his views are down. All right? Do you guys remember that cognitive distortion I've been talking about in this video of mind reading? How could anybody possibly know? How could anybody know the true motives or intentions? Right? With no evidence, no receipts, if you will. Like James Charles, he must be doing this because of his views, because nobody's that nice. Like think about that. This is why we need to work on our mental health. Our brain lies to us constantly. How many times do we get upset? How many people are upset with James Charles right now assuming that he didn't do it with pure intentions? Now, what Rich Lux goes on to say is that James Charles actually got this idea from Jeffree Star. And I know I'm gonna so much hate in the comments that I'm just so biased to house, but I remember Jeffree Star was paying people's bills. And if somebody has a broken pallet, he sends them a new one. He's always on Twitter contributing to the people. Now, I don't have a problem with Rich Lux, but I do have a problem with this narrative, okay? This is something that really, really bothers me. All right, is saying, oh my God, like, oh, this wasn't their idea, or they're not doing this good thing for good intentions because I have two words for you. Who cares? Okay, let's break this down and let's get rational real quick. Let's say Jeffree Star, he is the person who invented. It sounds silly just even saying it. Let's pretend that Jeffree Star invented doing nice things for people, okay? Let's pretend he did that. So Jeffree Star doing that, does that mean nobody else should do that because they might get accused of copying Jeffree Star? So we should deter people from doing nice things out of fear that they might be accused of trying to copy Jeffree Star. Think about that real quick. Think about the message that we're putting out there. All right? But at the end of the day, let's say worst case scenario, let's say I will hop into the pessimist Chris real quick. Let's say that James Charles is copying Jeffree Star. Let's say that James Charles is only doing this kind act because his views are down, right? James Charles is still trying to recover from all the drama with Tati Westbrook and Jeffree Star. Let's say that, right? Remember that video of the teacher. Remember the video of the teacher that I showed you. Who cares? Okay? Like I remember last year during drama get-in when Laura Lee came back after an infamous crying video and she did that video where she was shining a light on what's going on with the homeless population in Los Angeles and she raised awareness for it, right? Everybody's like, oh, this is just a PR stunt and da da da da. Two words once again. Who cares? All right? Like I sit there and I imagine how many homeless people benefited from Laura Lee doing that video. I don't care about Laura Lee's motives or intentions. The reality is that there was a net positive to that. So when it comes to James Charles, like I just want you guys to sit back and just really like reflect on what content you're consuming, right? Like is your brain automatically assuming the worst in people? Like ask yourself real quick. Do you want to be the type of person who automatically assumes the worst in people? Whenever somebody does a kind gesture, you automatically assume the worst in them? Like is that really who you want to be? So I just want you to sit back and reflect on that. Like we all have fun like looking at, you know, drama videos and seeing what's going on in the YouTube community. But if that's affecting your mentality outside of just watching YouTube and you're assuming the worst in everything because of selective attention theory and cognitive distortions, it's time to sit back and really reflect on some things and maybe, maybe work on some stuff, all right? But anyways, that's all I got for this video. Don't forget my brand new book, canceled is out now. It's in ebook and audio book format down in the description, down in the pinned comment below. So if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And I want to send out a huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon as well as everybody who supports the channel in other ways like buying my merch, buying the books I've written, all that kind of stuff. You're all amazing, all right? Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.